ISU

Best Moment: Japan's winning team back together

Japan's Ladies' Team Pursuit were unbeatable over the past two seasons, but at the first two ISU World Cup Speed Skating events in Tomaszów Mazowiecki and Nur-Sultan they were all over the place in various line-ups.

In front of an enthusiastic home crowd in Nagano's M-Wave at the season's fourth ISU World Cup Speed Skating, they finally got their golden Olympic line-up of the Takagi sisters Miho and Nana Takagi and Ayano Sato back together - and it showed.

Going out in the first pairing against Belgium, Japan smashed the Netherlands’ 2016 track record by more than two seconds, finishing in 2:56.37.

"[Ayano] Sato picks up my pace and is able to maintain it," she said. "It's one thing to build up the speed, but if the one who comes next is not able to keep it up, it's useless. Sato is skating very well at the moment.